SUNBURNT SALOME

Notes:One of a group of songs about African-American women who are encouraged to join the “Salome” craze and become a dancer wearing a minimum of costume. The “streets of Cairo” probably refers to the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893, not the city in Egypt.

Lyrics:

In the land of Cleopatra,
Where the palm-trees take the palm,
And the pyramids appear amid the sand,
There lives a little Sphinx
I’d give a lot to label “mine,”
And when the sun retires for the night;
Beneath her window in a turban white,
I twang a bar on my guitar,
And sing to eyes that shame the evening star.

CHORUS:
Sunburnt Salome, Sunburnt Salome,
Pack your grip and take a trip,
With me across the foam;
Don’t put on your shoes and stockings,
Leave your clothes at home,
And you’ll top the bill in Vaudeville,
My sunburnt Salome.

It was on the streets of Cairo,
With her dark Egyptian art,
She danced herself into my open heart one day.
Her father by the Prophet swore an Oriental “nay,”
But stolen fruits are sweet they say,
And soon across the Desert sands I’ll ride;
On camel, High with my sweet stolen bride,
Though Papa swear and tear his hair,
I’ll plead to her my Queen, beyond compare.